Through the gloomy mist and forest filled with gigantic ominous black trees, Michael followed her towards the teleportation array that was supposed to teleport them back to somewhere in the Ozer Continent.
The baby dragon was still asleep in Michael's arms having no ideas of the dangers around him. They both uttered no words as although they had the Demon Dragon heart's aura around them, they took no chance by chit-chatting. Therefore the journey was pretty gloomy and silent.
Eventually, after walking for several hours, they walked out of the forest in the middle region of the Treacherous Ocean. After walking out of the forest, they were welcomed by a narrow path between two gigantic mountains.
After pondering slightly, she said, "If I recall correctly, this path between the Ostium mountains will lead us to the Twilight ground, and from there we can go to the teleportation array. Remember it's extremely dangerous inside it. Many Soul Refining and even Fusion Stage mutated beings will be there"
"Ostium mountains?" he was slightly surprised to hear the name because Ostium ore was one of the requirements to upgrade the Dommbringer to level 2.
"Lady Lailah, is it possible for me to collect some Ostium ore here?"
After pondering slightly, she said, "Ostium ore should only exist in the Twilight ground, you can't mine these mountains, are you looking to forge a weapon?"
Michael nodded seeing her correctly guess his intention of seeking the Ostium ore. Since she didn't look too surprised he realized using Ostium to forge a weapon was not a rare thing in this world and it did make sense as it was required to upgrade the Doombringer to only level 2.
"Where is this Twilight ground?" he asked.
"The Twilight ground is not in the depths of the island but under an extremely hidden cliff in the middle region. It tunnels straight into the ground and is extremely deep,"
After wiggling through the narrow cliff for another hour, they finally found the entrance of the pit under a cliff according to the geography described by Lailah.
The entrance to the pit was a huge hole a hundred meters wide. The hole directly sunk into the earth and was pitch-black. When the duo stood at the edge of the unfathomably deep pit, they could sense a ghastly, bone-chilling wind from it.
He stood at the edge, staring into the darkness with curiosity and cautiousness. His eyebrows were furrowed and his calm expression instantly became rather stern. " When we go down, we should be cautious. I'll help you gather some ore but remember, you can't take too much of it as it might draw some unwanted attraction towards us"
"Understood, Lady Lailah,"
"Good, let's go down," she said confidently, before leaping down first. Following her, he jumped into the pitch-black hole, quickly descending into the darkness.
The Twilight ground was completely enshrouded in darkness, nothing could be seen. After falling for several hundred kilometers, some light gradually appeared beneath their feet. The light expanded in size as he quickly descended before it finally enveloped Michael. His vision was no longer pitch-black but filled with colorful light. It was extremely pretty as the light would glimmer from time to time. The glimmers of light were dense and they twinkled like the stars in the sky. The sight stunned Michael, he felt like he was swimming in outer space as he stared at the starry sky around him.
The two of them continued their descent down the pit at great speeds. They had no idea just how deep it was. They had fallen for at least a thousand kilometers, yet they had still not hit the bottom. Along the way, the two of them had also seen many mutated beings falling into the hole deeper and deeper but they did not detect the two of them.
With their constant descent, Michael slowly sensed that the hole seemed to be permeated with an odd energy. The temperature here would constantly change, sometimes bone-chillingly cold and other times scorching hot. It was as if they constantly traveled between two regions of opposite climates.
"What is this place?" He couldn't help but wonder after witnessing everything in this place.
"This hole doesn't seem to be naturally formed. Did this hole appear after the island changed? Also, this hole plunges in a straight path from the surface right into the earth. It's as if a massive object fell from the sky and carved this out."
"It's my thought too. This tunnel is just too straight. There are no bends at all, and images of the starry sky actually appear here. If you connect these facts, it's as if something from outer space had really collided with the island before creating such a deep crater." Lailah broke her silence and agreed with him. She too had a hint of curiosity in her eyes.
They continued their way down. Eventually, after falling for several hours, they finally hit solid ground. They had arrived at the bottom of the hole.
The pit still permeated with colorful nebulae. Starlight glimmered faintly as if they were each star that floated in space. They were innumerable, filling up the entire place.
Michael glanced around and discovered that the bottom was extremely large. It stretched as far as the eye could see and he could feel that the weird energy was even thicker here. The surrounding temperature constantly alternated between a frigid coldness and a scorching heat.
"Just what is this weird energy? Is this Celestial energy? Nah, this is something else" he mumbled to himself as he stared at the surroundings. Even his inherited memories of Abras contained no information on the weird energy here.
At this very moment, a strand of scorching energy fused with a strand of the frigid energy mid-air.
Michael and Lailah immediately focused on it with their senses. They discovered that the energy created when the extremely hot and extremely cold energies fused was indeed extremely similar to the energy radiated by the formations and the mutated beings.
"There must be some connection between this hole and what happened to the Dragon clan? just how many mysteries this world holds?"
He asked himself before beginning to search the surroundings. After he traveled a hundred meters, some dust that glimmered slightly on the ground caught his attention.
Squatting down he gently grabbed a handful of the glimmering chunks of stone and closely examined it "Don't collect that. Collect the ores that are floating in the air." Suddenly, he heard Lailah's voice coming from behind.
. He glanced at the pebbles of Ostium in his hand and then looked toward the glimmering ores that floated in mid-air like stars. Although the glimmering ores of Ostium in the air were much smaller than the ores on the ground, they glowed brighter than those on the ground.
" Those Ostium ores floating in the sky are purer than the ores on the ground." She said and then she moved away from him to quench her curiosity about this place.
Glancing at the ores in his hand, he hesitated slightly. He did not throw them away but instead, he put them into his system storage. Then, he began to collect the Ostium ores floating in the sky.
As the ores in the air were extremely well-dispersed, his speed of collecting them was not great and their small size did not help him.
A while after he was collecting the ores, Lailah's voice came from the distance
"come over here"
Michael immediately stopped his collection, walking in Lailah's direction to see why she called him in the middle of his treasure hunt.
When he got there, he saw Lailah standing in front of a human corpse. They did not know how long it had been dead for but its appearance had not changed at all.
Lailah was examining the corpse curiously while he sensed the weird energy in the surroundings constantly entering the corpse and slowly fusing into its bones. This weird energy just happened to be produced when the extremely hot and extremely cold energies fused.
" Looking at it, he's already been dead for thousands of years but there's no sign of decomposition at all," she said with a deep voice.
Michael too stared at the corpse with interest. "Lady Alden, I can feel that there are some changes currently occurring in its body. I think this weird energy is mutating the body"
At this very moment, the corpse on the ground snapped open its eyes without any prior signs. Its eyes were dull without any signs of life. It immediately produced a great roar, echoing through the entire pit. Afterward, it slowly stood up from the ground and turned its head like it was scanning its surroundings. His hands were already reaching for the swords but Lailah shook her head, wordlessly telling him not to do anything.
"Let's back away" She whispered to him, slowly backing away from the mutated being while the mutated being started to wander around the place mindlessly.
Although she had fulfilled what she needed in coming here, she had no intention of leaving immediately unlike she pretended. She ventured onward in the Twilight ground with Michael as she was extremely curious about the transformation of the island that occurred all those years ago. Of course, she had no idea of telling him everything, especially the fact that she was leading him a long way instead of a short way to the teleportation array.
The area of the Twilight ground was unknown to Michael, therefore, he could only trust that she knew the path and follow her behind. They traveled for a dozen or so kilometers in one direction but still had not reached the end. As they traveled, figures of the mutated beings gradually appeared in their sights.
Since she said not to collect too much Ostium ores, he sighed helplessly and kept walking past all the ores floating in the sky. However, after walking behind her for several hours, he creased his brows
"We've actually come back to where we were before"